Our child loves the outdoors.

I don’t say that in the way that some hippy granola parents would, like D. and I have somehow made a Conscious Effort to teach him to love Mother Earth and all that. If anything, we have tried to temper his love of nature, because, honestly, you can’t really watch TV out there and the computer doesn’t work so well, either. We are INSIDE people…people who enjoy air-conditioning and TiVo and mattresses.

I have never been camping, and for me, that’s sort of a badge of honor. Wait – I take that back. I did “camp” one night with my youth group on the beach at Gulf Shores, and I did not sleep a wink because of the Howling Sheets of Rain that came up under the tents and created little sand rivers that ran over your legs and arms and made you wish that Jesus would make his presence known very, very soon.

D. WANTS to be a person who camps, and he even bought us a tent when we were first married. However, I think I finally convinced him that any camping expedition offers the possibility of snakes, and, really, there’s no substitute for sleeping in a snake-free atmosphere.

But Boo – he is an outdoor boy. He loves whatever outside has to offer: rain, heat, sun, moon, clouds, flowers, grass – you name it. There are two nandina shrubs in our flower bed at the front of the house, and he walks up to them every single day and says, “Oh, Mama, they’re BEAUTIFUL!”

The latest objects of his affection, though, are a little – ummm – ODD.

The child loves manhole covers. So our trips outside usually involve walking down the driveway, checking the mail (he loves a mailbox, too), and then making our way to each and every manhole cover on the street. Honestly, I had no idea that there was such a need for street drainage here in Central Alabama, but what do I know?

Anyway, I watch A. jump on these manhole covers, and I wonder, what in the world will this child do for entertainment if we continue to live in this rural setting? Keep in mind that I am a person who has never used the words “entertainment” and “outdoors” in the same sentence; they’re oil and water as far as I’m concerned. But if he’s jumping on manhole covers at 2 1/2, will he be whittling by the time he’s 5? Will he start some form of jug band to fill up the lonely hours?

I can’t help but think that having D. for a daddy will convince A., at around age 7, that he has hit the parental jackpot, at least on the paternal side. His daddy has tons of DVD’s, he loves video games, he stays up-to-date on all the latest technology and, I might add, is smart as a whip about how to assemble it, use it, maximize it, fix it, etc.

I have visions of the two of them in the basement, sitting in front of the XBox with controllers in hand, saving the world from the threat of alien rulers, winning SuperBowls in Madden 2009. And I know that there is lots of real life football and baseball in their future, too – but I am waaaay on board with that, given my lifelong obsession with SEC football and basketball (in fact, when I picture myself 10 years down the road, I see me in the stands at some youth league football game, wearing a jersey with A.’s number on it, standing up and screaming, “BREAK HIS LEG, Alex! BREAK HIS LEG!”).

Oh, I’m just kidding. Kind of.

But what if A. doesn’t like that stuff? What if life out here in the boondocks rubs off on him? What if he’d rather sit on the front porch wearing overalls with no shirt underneath while he plays his BANJO?

I fear it’s a slippery slope from manhole covers to banjos. Gotta get this young’un inside. And fast. :-)

After one month (and then some), Tile Fest 2005-06 is finished. Kind of. There are still some caulking “issues,” but other than that, I am happy to announce that the linoleum is gone, the tiles are secure, and the craziness is, for the most part, over.

Since I was keeping a watchful eye on Chatty McTalkerson for the majority of the project, I didn’t get to share in much of D.’s “joy.” But I will say that I think the lowest of all the low moments was when he re-installed our commode, turned the water on, and then noticed a Very Slow. But Steady. Leak.

Oh, he said some words at that point that would not, as my mama would say, “further the Kingdom.”

He said even more words after he purchased a new commode from A Large Home Improvement Warehouse, brought it home, and it didn’t fit.

A couple of days later he called me from Another Large Improvement Warehouse, and when I answered the phone, he said, “Well, I got us a commode.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Is it the same kind we used to have?”

“Oh NOOOO,” he answered. “This one has comfort seating and can flush twenty golf balls.”

Puzzled pause from me, then:

“Do we have any NEED to flush twenty golf balls?”

“No. But I feel better knowing that I could if I wanted to.”

So, we now have tile, a commode you can sit on comfortably until the Rapture, and a place to dispose of all those annoying extra golf balls you have laying around the house.

Just a little piece of heaven on earth.

P.S. – 12:32 AM

Just a few minutes ago I let D. know that I had put the tale of his new toilet on the Wide World Interweb (as my friend Buddy calls it).

He said, “Well, what did you say about it?”

I told him that I mentioned how the new “toirlet” can flush 20 golf balls and has comfort seating and then more I talked the more he got this sort of pained look on his face, and I thought, “Oh no – I have crossed the internet boundary line on this one – this was just too personal a thing for me to post” (although why would it matter? It’s not like anyone actually READS this stuff).

Anyway, I said, “WHAT? WHAT IS IT? What’s wrong?”

“It’s 2 dozen.”

“HUH?”

“Two dozen! The commode can flush TWENTY FOUR golf balls at once. And have you sat on it? Because that commode [pointing at the half bath that has an “old” model] is like squatting. But this new one is like resting or something.”

Like I said – it’s just heaven on earth around these parts. :-)

A couple of days after Christmas, Mama was looking at all of the Christmas cards we received. They were all adorable, and I don’t know that there’s any part of the Christmas tradition that I enjoy more than the volumes of pictures and cards we get in the mail. Aside from the birth of our Lord and Savior, of course. Sorry if I briefly lost focus on the Reason for the Season.

Nonetheless, Mama was looking over the cards with a fine-toothed comb. How old is Molly now, she asked. Does Kristi just have two boys? Look at that little Sarah – now SHE is gorgeous, and her brother looks just like Melissa. You get the idea.

So I’m answering and “yes ma’am”-ing as I clean up the kitchen, and I hear:

“Oh, and would you look at Tracey’s beautiful children! Sweet John and Mary Riels and…Rosemary.”

“ROSEMARY?!?!?! Mama – Tracey doesn’t have a child named ROSEMARY. It’s RAMSAY.”

“Oh, yes – that’s what I meant.”

Cracks me up every single time I think about it.

I think the reason it tickles me so is because my mama is the queen of making a mistake and pulling it off like it’s exactly what she meant to do.

For example, at my baby shower Mama gave me several things for the baby, and on the tag for one of them, it said, “To my darling Alexa.”

“ALEXA?!?! Mama – we’re having a BOY, remember? Named ALEX?”

“Well, he’ll always be sweet Alexa to his OuiOui.”

Of course he will. :-)

Here’s an interesting article on the train wreck that is the Ed Orgeron Era at Ole Miss.

So today I’m making lunch for the young lad, as my friend Tracie calls my son, and I realize, as I’m cooking up some quesadillas, that tortillas, by and large, have become a staple in the American kitchen.

Think about it. You go in them thar supermarkets these days, and you can buy all sorts of things. FOREIGN things.

Seriously – it was sort of a revelation to me (which may say more about the condition of my mind than it does about the condition of the American supermarket). But when I was growing up, you didn’t just walk in the Winn Dixie and buy tortillas. And if you had asked for them in my hometown, you would have had to deal with Ruby – she of the bouffant hair and the gum stuck back in the left corner of her mouth JUST LIKE SHE LIKED IT so that she could crack it real good when she rang up your groceries – and she would have said, “Hon, what in SAM HILL are you talking about? Tor-till-ahs? Never heard of ’em.”

We couldn’t buy hummus or tahini or tomatillos or even salsa (it was the 70’s – you got taco sauce). The grocery store was the place where Americans bought American food to eat in their American homes with their American families. The End.

Anyway, I thought about the fact that A. will never know a grocery store without tortillas. He will never know a world without Tivo. We had three channels when I was growing up, but my child has access to a hard drive with all his favorite shows on it…not to mention the fact that, at 2 1/2, he knows how to work the remote. He will never know a world without cell phones or computers or DVD players or XBox. Or Xbox 360, for that matter.

And furthermore and on top of that, my husband read an article the other night about coursecasting…which basically means that professors are putting their lectures online, and students download Podcasts so they can hear whatever was said that day in class. All I could think was that if that particular brand of technology had been available in the late 80’s / early 90’s, my friends and I would have NEVER made it to class. Daph would’ve still gone – because she loves knowledge – and EK would’ve gone because she would’ve never figured out how to get the coursecast off of the internet and would’ve found it MUCH easier to just do things the old-fashioned way. Elise and I, on the other hand, would’ve not only found a way to download the lectures, we’d also have found a way to turn a profit. Because we’re industrious like that.

So all of these things – tortillas, coursecasts, etc. – make me wonder about what kind of world Boo will live in twenty years down the road. Will he just have some sort of chip in the side of his head so that people can beam information at it? Will he have some sort of permanent earpiece that’s a smaller version of those cell phone wrap-around-your-ear things that I just despise? Will his cell phone be able to perform light cooking and cleaning duties in addition to being, you know, a PHONE?

But here’s the biggest revelation I had after my thoughts of tortillas: my son will pity me. He will pity me because I didn’t have the same conveniences. Just like I pitied my parents for not having push-button telephones and color television when they were growing up. And I can’t help but imagine him rolling his eyes at me when I try to explain that, when mama and daddy were children, computer monitors only had AMBER LETTERS – there was NO OTHER COLOR. And him looking at me all incredulous-like when I say that we had to GO SIT IN A DESK and use PEN and PAPER because there were no coursecasts or laptops or cell phones that could cook a casserole.

Yet in this moment, on this fine fall afternoon, I am comforted by one essential piece of information: Alex is about to wake up from his nap, and when he does, he will want my undivided attention. Technology can do a lot, you see, but it can’t replace mamas and daddies being there when you wake up. Or when you fall down. Or when you need a shoulder to cry on. There are some needs that reach beyond the realm of coursecasts on the college campus and tortillas in the supermarket.

And for that, I am thankful.

Reasons Why I Adore Paula Deen To The Extent That My Child Sees Her On The TV Screen and Says, “Mama’s Show!”:

1. Every recipe contains the following phrase: “Okay, y’all – first you take a stick of butter…”
2. She appreciates mayonnaise. Many don’t. But Paula gets the necessity of this far-too-underrated condiment.
3. She is proud of her wedding ring…she wears it when she’s kneading dough, she wears it when she’s pulling chicken off a bone…I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a woman just WORK IT OUT where a wedding ring was concerned, but Paula does.
4. She obviously saw herself on the first few episodes and thought, “You know, I look a little tired.” Look at her now. I don’t know who her doctor is, but Paula looks REFRESHED.
5. She recognizes the comfort and utility of wearing a men’s oxford shirt while cooking. It’s an apron with buttons as far as I’m concerned.
6. She loves her boys.
7. She makes food that real people will eat. And she eats it, too. (NOTE: there is another chef on Food Network who weighs approximately 92 lbs. My husband walked through the den one day when I was watching the other chef’s show, and he did a double take at her waifish size and said, “She knows it’s delicious because she’s smelled it so often.” And that is why we’re married).
8. She cooks with stuff that I have in the pantry. I don’t look at her recipes and think 1) what is that? and 2) where do I find it?
9. She reminds me of my mama and her friend Edna – you give them flour, eggs, sugar and butter, and they will produce Delicious Goodness for a crowd of 20 with it.
10. Her accent makes me happy.